Saturday, March 13, 2010

Room on Fire is a great album by the Strokes, after their 2001 debut, Is This It. I love these guys. Perpetually drunk, lead singer Julian Casablancas once broke his leg falling off the stage, only to spend the rest of the tour singing on a stool, still boozing it up.Julian has since sworn off the sauce, but Room on Fire was recorded during the height of their partying days. "The room is on fire as she's fixing her hair." Classic lyrics.

Last week Jason Kruk and I had a rare day off work, so we booted it up to Squamish. Jason had intermittently been trying an old Perry Beckham project at the Solarium, a leaning splitter up an otherwise blank wall. I had tried it last year with him once. One day off, decent weather in early march, and a first ascent waiting to be plucked... what could be better?

Jason swore up and down that the route would be in the sun, and I believed him. Upon arriving at the cliff, it became clear that the sun wasn't high enough in the sky to warm this shady little cliff. It was frigid. Frozen toes, numb finger and balancy granite weirdness. On my second try, I barely stuck the moves, willing my feet to stay put, and enjoying every last move. At the end of the line, the climber is forced to leave the crack and bust out for some slopers on the lip, at the very top of the wall. I barely stuck it and crawled my way to the anchor with bleeding, buzzing fingers.

The next day at work I was grinning like an idiot, so happy to have caught a bit of sun between the storms. Everything seemed so much brighter.

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Tuesday March 16, at 7 p.m. at the Bellingham Library, Fairhaven Branch (1117 12th St.) in the Fireside Room. It is free and open to the public. This is a Bellingham Mountaineers meeting. Here's the website:

http://www.bellinghammountaineers.org/

So... this should be blast. If anyone finds themselves in Bellingham Washington, come out, and we'll talk about rocks, climbing and all that fun stuff.